1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to the field of transcoding media content and more specifically to the field of transcoding media content for a portable/removable media content device using metadata to control the media signal.
2. Background
Media content, such as a live television broadcast that is normally captured and recorded on a personal video recorder (PVR) is not suited for use on a handheld portable media content device. PVRs such as TIVO™ or Replay TV™ are designed to record audio/video signals for play back at high resolution on full size television monitors. The nature of the handheld portable media content device requires the device to have a smaller viewing screen, and often a much lower-resolution viewing screen. The storage space available on the portable device is also limited, and usually only a fraction of what is available on a PVR.
The bitrate, framerate, resolution, and codec used on the PVR leads to non-ideal performance on the handheld device. For example, a PVR normally captures video in MPEG2 format at 2-4 Mbps. At this bit rate, only 5-10 minutes of content could be stored on a portable media content device with 128 MB of storage. The amount of storage space on a portable device cannot easily be expanded and requirements on device size, power consumption, and cost dictate relatively small amounts of storage. The portable device generally does not need to have media content encoded at a bitrate suitable for full size audio/video equipment due to the limited resources of the portable device, e.g., smaller viewing screen and smaller audio system. It is better to have content that is tailored to the capabilities of the device. Furthermore, present PVRs have no way of intelligently skipping certain media content selections that are broadcast based on a user's viewing/listening history on the portable device.